Plymouth Devils: 44
Newcastle Diamonds: 46
Premier League
A win at the Plymouth Devils would guarantee the Newcastle Diamonds pole position in the final Premier League and grant them the choice in opponent in the League Championship play-offs which gave last night's long-distance travellers to the Oak tree Arena all the drive they needed for success.
Even though Newcastle had the carrot dangling well Plymouth have the League's top rider in Ben Barker racing for them and he duly came out in Heat One and took a solid win from the gate in a shared 3-3.
But Claes Nedermark took Heat Two in equally an impressive gate to flag win with guest Paul Starke taking advantage of Jake Andersons' tape-touching offence which put him on a 15 metre handicap in a Newcastle 2-4 putting the Tynesiders into the lead, 5-7.
Christian Henry and Mark Lemon blasted Ben Reade and Cory Gathercole's offence out of the water in a huge Heat Three Newcastle maximum 1-5 before Plymouth's wild and woolly American Ryan Fisher kept Nedermark and Ludvig Lindgren well and truly at bay in a shared Heat Four taking the score onto 6-12.
Robson took a good Heat Five victory for three points and again with young Starke racing well for a point over Reade the 2-4 went to the Diamonds, but another Barker win in the sixth redressed the balance with a Devils' 4-2 moving the all-important score to a tight 15-21.
Henry again excelled with an untroubled win over Todd Kurtz in Heat Eight's Diamonds' 2-4 with Nedermark successfully holding Anderson well to the rear whilst following another share of the spoils in Heat Nine the home side, courtesy of Barker and Kurtz shocked the Lemon/Henry partnership with a home 5-1 to tighten things to a tantalising 28-32.
Robson's fine win in Heat 11 coupled with another well-battled third from Nedermark in Heat 11 extended Newcastle's lead once again to six wilst Nedermark's win over Gathercole and Anderson in Heat 12 held that gap going into the 13th race with the score 33-39.
But Robson and Fisher raced a little too close for comfort in that race with the Devil hitting the dirt and Robson being excluded from the re-start for being the cause of the stoppage in which the home side took the chance to haul some points back with a vital 5-1 of their own over the lone-Diamond Lindgren, and with three races to go the score was 38-40.
Nedermark and Henry took full notice of the situation and raced with the wind behind them in a stunning Heat 14, taking the full five points from James Holder and Reade, but to claim all four league points the last heat had to be won by the Diamonds 2-4 as the score entering the final race was 39-45.
Fisher and Barker however decided to spoil the party taking a solid 5-1 over Robson and Henry, but the three league points won by the Diamonds clinched the League's final top spot for themselves as they now progress in pole position towards the League Championship Play-offs taking place next month.
Team manager George English said: "We mentioned before this match that Plymouth were potentially worth a lot more than the League's last place and tonight's tight and tough contest really proved that with some good hard racing on the track. Now that number one place in the final league table is ours we can concentrate of securing the League Championship for our own in the forthcoming play-off series."
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